Wireless networks are now pervasive and vital in society. Wireless networks may transmit and receive information utilizing varying techniques. Hybrid Automatic Retransmission Request (HARQ) improves the spectral efficiency of communication systems like 4G technologies WiMAX and LTE, although the present invention is not limited to these particular wireless communication technologies. Receiver implementation of HARQ requires a large amount of memory, since it requires storage of received information in the form of soft bits. A Soft Bit, also referred to herein as a bit's metric, represents the reliability of the received bit, and usually is evaluated as LLR (Log Likelihood Ratio) for this bit.
Currently, metrics in a HARQ buffer are saved with 8 or 6 bits per metric and successfully decoded FEC blocks are not evacuated from the buffer. Consequently, there is a strong need in the wireless communication industry to refine metrics saved in a HARQ buffer in order to take advantage of the typical buffer occupancy and to work in conjunction with efficient representation of the metrics and efficient management of an aggregated buffer.
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